931 — Al-Firyābī also informed us. He said: Ishāq ibn Rāhawayh informed us. He said: Abū Muāwiya informed us, from Yazīd al-Raqāshī, from Anas, that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, heard a loud crash and asked Gabriel, “What is that?” Gabriel replied, “A stone was cast from the brink of Hell seventy autumns ago; only now has it come to rest at its bottom.” ⦗1361⦘

Abū Bakr said: “This is how I found it in the original.”

The shaykh said: “This is how I found it in the original: ‘from Yazīd al-Raqāshī.’ I do not know whether a narrator was omitted from my copy or whether the report itself was transmitted with an incomplete chain. In most narrations, the chain is: Abū Muāwiya, from al-Amash, from Yazīd al-Raqāshī. Allah knows best.”

It is narrated from Anas that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, heard a loud crash and asked Gabriel, peace be upon him, “What is that?” He replied, “A stone was cast over the brink of Hell seventy autumns ago; only now has it come to rest at its bottom.”

Muhammad ibn al-Husayn, may Allah have mercy on him, said: These traditions, as well as others too numerous to mention, demonstrate to people of reason—and even to those without formal learning—that Allah, Mighty and Majestic, has already created Paradise and Hell. It has also been related in more than one hadith that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, “I entered Paradise.” We shall cite from them what ought to be cited, all so that people may know that Allah, Mighty and Majestic, has already created Paradise and Hell.